Things To Do in Iceland

Iceland is an interesting place to visit. It has a beautiful nature and people are nice. It’s capital Reykjavik is a beautiful small city. However, having visited many places in the world, I find that Iceland is a little bit overrated. If you are not really a nature person, then Iceland might be a boring choice.

Reykjavik and Nightlife

Reykjavik is a beautiful city but it does not really have much to offer. Many tourist attractions such as Hallgrimskirkja, Solfar, Whales of Iceland and Harpa were far beyond my expectations. If you have ever visited any big European capital you would know what I am talking about.

Laugavegur Street

The city is filled with many restaurants and bars. Most of them are located on Laugavegur street. On Laugavegur, there are some shopping stores but you won’t find any top European brands here. These are often local Icelandic stores: Icewear, Nordic store and etc.The prices are outrageous in compared other European capitals. On day time you will find only a handful of people walking here.

Typical Icelandic Girl

On contrary, Laugavegur is usually crowded at night. Bars are open until 1:00am on weekdays but on weekends they are open until 4:00. You won’t meet any local people on weekdays. It often feels like that the city seems to be hijacked by foreigners. On weekends, it is a different story. Beautiful Icelandic girls and tall Icelandic men also go out. They are a bit rude but its okay since you are on the land of the Vikings.

Nowadays, most bars and clubs are filled with American tourists. I think this is a consequence of American marketing. IcelandAir’s promotions seem to be very effective in attracting US tourists to Iceland. American Bar, English Pub and Irish Pub seems to attract many foreigners.

The Golden Circle

One of the most popular tourist attractions in Iceland is called the Golden circle. It consists of a drive of about 300 km. I strongly recommend you to rent a car instead of taking a bus. Bus tours are unnecessarily long. I don’t think you should spend more than 20 minutes in any of the tourist stops in Golden Circle. However, if you do it with a bus tour, you end up spending your your whole day. All tourist stops in the Golden Circle are very beautiful but there isn’t really much to do except taking a couple of selfies. If the weather is warm, you may spend more than half hour on each stop probably but in winter time it would be difficult to spend more than 10-15 mins. Cold winds in these areas freeze your will to spend more time.

Gullfoss Waterfall

In the Golden Circle you travel to 5-6 points. Gullfoss water falls and Geysir hot springs are really beautiful and should be seen by anyone who visit Iceland. They are definitely natural wonders. Thingvellir national park is not that special. It has a nice scenery but there is not anything to do there if you are not into camping and hiking. As I said earlier, if you decide to take a bus tour to do the Golden Circle, you end up spending more time in those places than you would normally do.